Former Senator Tom Coburn, along with Adam Andrzejewski of OpenTheBooks.com, wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal about the militarization of the bureaucracy.

Special agents at the IRS equipped with AR-15 military-style rifles? Health and Human Services “Special Office of Inspector General Agents” being trained by the Army’s Special Forces contractors? The Department of Veterans Affairs arming 3,700 employees? The number of non-Defense Department federal officers authorized to make arrests and carry firearms (200,000) now exceeds the number of U.S. Marines (182,000). In its escalating arms and ammo stockpiling, this federal arms race is unlike anything in history. Over the last 20 years, the number of these federal officers with arrest-and-firearm authority has nearly tripled to over 200,000 today, from 74,500 in 1996. …During a nine-year period through 2014, we found, 67 agencies unaffiliated with the Department of Defense spent $1.48 billion on guns and ammo. Of that total, $335.1 million was spent by agencies traditionally viewed as regulatory or administrative, such as the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. Mint.

Here are some of the strange example of militarized bureaucracy, along with my speculation as to why the paper pushers ostensibly need heavy weapons.

The Internal Revenue Service, which has 2,316 special agents, spent nearly $11 million on guns, ammunition and military-style equipment. That’s nearly $5,000 in gear for each agent.

The Department of Veterans Affairs, which has 3,700 law-enforcement officers guarding and securing VA medical centers, spent $11.66 million. It spent more than $200,000 on night-vision equipment, $2.3 million for body armor, more than $2 million on guns, and $3.6 million for ammunition. The VA employed no officers with firearm authorization as recently as 1995.

And there are other bureaucracies to add to this list, which doesn’t make Corburn and Andrzejewski very happy.

Other paper-pushing federal agencies with firearm-and-arrest authority that have expanded their arsenals since 2006 include the Small Business Administration, Social Security Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Education Department, Energy Department, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, National Institute of Standards and Technology and many others. …the federal government has become a gun show that never adjourns. Taxpayers need to tell Washington that police powers belong primarily to cities and states, not the feds.

By the way, I have no objection to armed guards stationed at federal buildings. There are wackos out there. And I’m completely in favor of armed Energy Department officials guarding nuclear facilities.

But do we really need armed regulators interacting with the public?

Yes, bureaucrats occasionally have to deal with potentially dangerous people. And even if they’re enforcing rules that shouldn’t exist, I think they have every right to be protected. But in those rare instances, why not simply call up the local cops and ask for an escort? Would that really be asking too much?

Jeff Jacoby is similarly irked by the militarization of the bureaucracy. Here’s some of what he wrote for the Boston Globe.

…consider one domestic organization’s fearsome arsenal of military-style equipment. In the space of eight years, the group amassed a stockpile of pistols, shotguns, and semiautomatic rifles, along with ample supplies of ammunition, liquid explosives, gun scopes, and suppressors. In its cache as well are night-vision goggles, gas cannons, plus armored vests, drones, and surveillance equipment. Between 2006 and 2014, this organization spent nearly $4.8 million to arm itself. Yet its aggressive weapons buildup has drawn almost no public attention. …It is the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, an agency of the US Department of Agriculture, that has built up such a formidable collection of munitions. And far from being an outlier, it is one of dozens of federal agencies that spends lavishly on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment.

I guess the APHIS bureaucrats must run into ISIS terrorists. Or something like that.

But the more serious point, which Jeff astutely addresses, is whether militarized bureaucrats send the wrong message.

Between 2006 and 2014, the report shows, 67 federal bureaus, departments, offices, and services spent at least $1.48 billion on ammunition and materiel one might expect to find in the hands of SWAT teams, Special Forces soldiers — or terrorists. …the arms race has metastasized to federal agencies with strictly regulatory or administrative functions. The Internal Revenue Service, for example, now spends more than $1 million annually on firearms, ammunition, and military gear, double what it was spending a decade ago. Since 2006, the Department of Veterans Affairs — which has been sharply criticized for episodes of fatal incompetence in patient care — has poured nearly $11.7 million into guns and ammo. …Incredibly, there are now fewer US Marines than there are officers at federal administrative agencies with the authority to carry weapons and make arrests. …this federal arsenal alarms Adam Andrzejewski, the head of American Transparency’s OpenTheBooks.com, which researched and assembled the new report. “Just who,” he asks, “are the feds planning to battle?”

As I said at the start of this column, I don’t think bureaucrats are “planning to battle” anyone.

But I am concerned that a bloated government with vast and growing powers is a recipe for an ugly and unfortunate encounters.

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With regard to VA guards. They are actually federal police with arrest authority. Fully armed. They are there to protect VA employees from the patients. Video cameras inside and out. Many VA employees see veterans as a threat to their safety and job and do not want contact. How many civilian hospitals have armed guards. Don’t believe me, try rolling a stop sign at a VA and find out.

My local Social Security office has no visible employees other than heavily armed guards. To speak to someone, you use a video connection to someone in another city. The armed guards glare at you constantly.

Random violence and criminality is endemic. Why do condos in NYC hire doormen? Probably because they don’t get the security they want from existing public policing. Public agencies seem to be responding to this same reality. Historically, the Social Security Administration has experienced violent acts and shootings in their local offices. Increased policing, by the agency or public security services, may be an answer, but costly, ineffective, and unpopular. Alternatives may be needed. More extensive electronic surveillance, and controlled access? Redesign of services to facility remote services, even the unnecessary layering of access/management? Then there is the identification of “crazies” beforehand. Limiting choices to existing ones resembles the definition of insanity – repeating mistakes despite a record of failure. Innovation beckons.

This is lumped in with guns as “military equipment”. Wildlife control sometimes requires shooting wildlife. I don’t like an over-armed government, but this seems to be a gathering of untrustworthy statistics to support a bias.

Of course, each of these agencies should explain in detail, in writing, just what they are planning. Everyone should reject and vote out a government which will not openly explain itself.

last year there were 2,988 shooting victims in the city of Chicago… so far for this year… {as of 2:57 this afternoon} there are 1,898… other cities have devastating shooting statistics as well… Chicago isn’t unique in this… in spite of some of the strictest gun laws in the nation… government agencies are whizzing away resources that could be used to stem the tide of death and destruction in America’s inner cities… and democrat and republican politicians are sitting on their fat posteriors and letting it happen… these agencies have no justification for assembling their own militarized forces… and yet inner city neighborhoods are in desperate need of personnel and resources in to protect the lives and property of American citizens… this money could have been allocated to federalize and activate the Illinois Army National Guard for a period of time… with the mission of stopping the bloodshed and protecting the lives and property of Chicago residents… yes it could be done… how in the hell do they justify spending billions of dollars on arming the likes of “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration… The Education Department… Bureau of Engraving and Printing… National Institute of Standards and Technology”??……… it’s crap-politics pure and simple… and a strong indication that agency bureaucrats don’t intend to go quietly…

Relax! The EPA’s ammunition and military equipment is all certified low carbon. “Kill people, not the planet!” Is the motto.

I’m a bit surprised though NASA is not on the list. You know there are space aliens out there in them stars. I guess the plant inspection service must have stolen their budgets, to fight them man eating plants out there.